Subsonic Music Festival 2012 – The Review

After taking an incredibly lengthy shit in a portaloo at Subsonic Music Festival, my friend stumbled from the unsavoury stall with a frantic look on his face, declaring he’d been to Japan. I eyed him suspiciously as he had been gone for 30 minutes. Checking for residual poo, I made him do a slow 360 turn and liberally doused him in antibacterial gel. I suspected he was lying about Japan – his pupils were large enough to collect spilt milk – but anything is possible at Subsonic.

It was here in the beautiful back drop of Barrington Tops I discovered the origins of the phrase go hard or go home. This may be a small festival, but my God she is an untamed beast. In this adult play-ground awash with enough fancy dress to turn a person insane, people laugh in the face of warm-up sets. They shove dirty middle fingers up at chill out rooms. They scoff at those not practiced enough to make it through the 3 days of non-stop, unabridged, hedonistic partying. If you don’t class yourself as a class-a party goer, with more energy than a sack full of Duracell on speed, fuck off home with nice a cuppa. Leave this one to the pros. It’s all about survival of the fittest on these dance floors. Here, reality is but figment of someone else’s imagination.

Playing host to an international line-up, there was music across 4 stages/arenas and various food outlets with their own take on entertainment. The stand-out acts of the weekend were The Bird and Opiuo. Neither of which I’d seen live before, but both of which managed to me make lick the grass in appreciation, with dance moves made possible by the warped reality of my surroundings, and the things I consumed after breakfast.

The river provided a welcome respite from the scorching sun during the day, and perfect spot for the inner nudist at night. As I stood naked in ankle deep water, proclaiming at the top of my lungs that I was in fact, a nudist, I had expected something to happen. But the folk lounging around on the 4-poster beds on the river bank, did not throw their pants in the air with glee, they didn’t shout, ME TOO, and they didn’t join me. The only reaction I got was a flutter of camera flashes, and some westy bogan telling me I was faaaaaaaarckin fit. To be fair, I suspect the on lookers may have had trouble stripping down to their god given goods, as many were suffering from the terrible after dark affliction of pterodactyl hands and t-rex arms.

Subsonic is essentially a very well organised doof, with good facilities (real showers and decent food), and a great crowd of people. Plus it’s BYO, so you don’t need to stash booze in your knickers. And at $150 a pop, it would be more expensive to stay home. My only criticism is that the stages needed to be further apart – nothing more annoying than being able to hear more than one set at a time – and a chill out stage (or set!?) would have been perfect for some post-mayhem-gathering-of-ones-shit-and-marbles. Oh fuck, hold on – this means I’m not hardcore enough right?! Home time for me.